UNDOING LIFE WRITING: POSTMODERN BIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION IN WOOLF, BARNES, AND WINTERSON

Abstract

This article examines how Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot, and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? challenge the authority and ethics of traditional biography through postmodern biographic metafiction. Drawing on Linda Hutcheon’s historiographic metafiction and feminist and queer approaches to life writing, the study argues that these texts foreground narrative construction, epistemological uncertainty, and genre fluidity. Woolf satirizes biography through gender and temporal instability; Barnes fractures the biographical form to reveal the elusiveness of truth; Winterson fuses fiction and memoir to explore trauma and identity. Together, these works resist biographical transparency and recast life writing as a performative, interpretive, ethically charged act. By incorporating Winterson’s hybrid texts into the discussion, the article expands debates in feminist, queer, and postmodern literature, positioning these authors as central to the transformation of biography into a self-reflexive, experimental, and politically engaged literary practice.

Keywords

• biographic metafiction
• life writing
• postmodern narrative
• feminist and queer theory
• narrative ethics

Hayat Yazımını Sökmek: Woolf, Barnes ve Winterson’da Postmodern Biyografik Üstkurmaca

Abstract

Bu makale, Virginia Woolf’un Orlando, Julian Barnes’ın Flaubert’s Parrot ve Jeanette Winterson’ın Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit ile Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? adlı eserlerinin, postmodern biyografik üstkurmacaaracılığıyla geleneksel biyografinin otoritesini ve etik anlayışını nasıl sorguladığını incelemektedir. Linda Hutcheon’ın tarih yazımı üstkurmaca kuramı ile feminist ve queer yaşam yazımı yaklaşımlarına dayanan çalışma, bu metinlerin anlatı inşasını, epistemolojik belirsizliği ve türler arasındaki geçişkenliği ön plana çıkardığını savunur. Woolf, biyografi türünü cinsiyet ve zamanın akışkanlığıyla hicvederken; Barnes, biyografik yapıyı parçalayarak gerçeğin yakalanamazlığını gözler önüne serer; Winterson ise kurmaca ile anıyı harmanlayarak travma ve kimlik meselelerini irdeler. Bu eserler birlikte biyografinin şeffaflığına direnir ve yaşam yazımını performatif, yorumlayıcı ve etik açıdan yüklü bir edim olarak yeniden tanımlar. Winterson’ın hibrit metinlerini tartışmaya katarak, makale feminist, queer ve postmodern edebiyat alanındaki tartışmaları genişletir; bu yazarları biyografinin kendine göndermeli, deneysel ve politik olarak katılımcı bir edebi forma dönüşümünde merkezi figürler olarak konumlandırır.

Keywords

• biyografik üstkurmaca
• hayat yazımı
• postmodern anlatı
• feminist ve queer kuram
• anlatı etiği

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